Ankylosaur

I am sure the stealth impacted the guides. The guides are non-required, non-combat, escorts. Like any escort, they mark the destination location on your map and usually in your display too. And like any escort, they don't really lead you, they just mark where to take them, and that goes away when you leave them. I set them to wander when they arrive (if you took them to their destination). They are there to help a little and for flavor. I think the rescue is a good change. I think I am going to update another thing that for some reason I did not do. Normally, when I have multiple contacts I integrate them in the text - will take a little work to get Jaena, Hellewise, and Nadia all into the text instead of the clues, but their dialog usually makes for more dynamic storytelling/convesations.

Great feedback - thanks! The original approach was non-combat, so none of the ratings were based on them fighting - getting them to fight was an attempt to bring more action to it. But it sounds like it was not an improvement in your experience. 🙂 The spirit guides are escorts that help by marking the map for your destination, that's all. They're there to make finding the glowies and the objectives easier. It's kind of pointless on M1 now, but at least gets you used to the idea. On M2, I would think they're pretty helpful since the glowies can be in a big area and the escorts in a cave. I can pull the Lichens easily enough too. I thought they were a little novel, but they may have worked a little better in the original map or at least before the escorts tried to chase them. Sorry to trigger BNY PSD. 🙂 So I am going with the simple option - just rescue them - and they are immediately under your thrall and they run for the exit. Feels a little more straightforward, but am sure it will be more fun and improve the pacing as a result.

Good feedback - probably my original thinking - especially since you can't fail it that way, but I did put in fail text that accommodates it. They can be non-combat, which is how it originally ran. But this might be mitigated by the unless I'm squishy and the NPC is powerful part - the premise is you are compelling gods to fight for you in a bigger fight later so gathering them. The escorts are AVs - so pretty powerful. (Adamastor and the OG Woodsmen) Admastor lumbers slowly so his smaller map will help make that less tedious, and in the other, you have two AVs for a speedy plow through and exit.

Originally Sparkles was female back when I needed custom Gold Brickers, but I kind of love a big Boomer called Sparkles. Historical note:

Jim the Merit Vendor and Rhonda Jones the Inspiration Vendor are the vendors in that part of Faultline. 🙂 I also have the Pocket D contact wandering around there, (though could not recreate his outfit)and several other Robopals. Another little Easter egg is a Recycling bin that has directions to the hidden Cryptic Lounge in Faultline.

Made some updates to 4.3, which sits out there at 4 stars 😕. Without any specific feedback, I had to try to suss out why people might react negatively. I came up with a few things... Spoilers...

While working on All That Glows, I fiddled around with a couple of other stories too to tie them in or just update them based on things @TerroirNoir noted. Just documenting the changes here... Spoilers abound

Published All That Glows 3.1 yesterday. It's a major rewrite of Police vs. Aliens 1 - taking the best missions and updating them, and adding in a few new ones which are pretty rich too. Gone are the decision/failure mechanics that were part of the original the missions that increase in level over time Feedback is welcomed and encouraged of course! 4.1 (previously Police vs Aliens 2) is published too. As a Dev's choice, I didn't want to muck with it much - just added in some of the new Nictusy gifts the devs gave us in the last release... And that's that - no plans to create any more Post Praetorian ATG stories. (While I do have some ideas around ATG 5.x, not sure there is an audience for what I have already published, let alone more. 🙂 ) FIN

Oh and if you go to the Kallisti Arena construction site, you will find it filled with "Big Brother" construction equipment, and in the parking lot there are Gold Brick trucks...

Oh.... the anticipation! This expansion into Paragon is where the series originally started, with Langston finding a way in by helping to reclaim hazard zones, and the Gold Brickers justifying their presence of heavy weapons by needing them for protection there. Looking ahead you'll see that many of the arcs are anchored primarily in a Paragon City Hazard Zone, with Faultline, Terra Volta, Eden, and the RWZ as the clear ones. (Those aren't spoilers as those are in the titles. Originally the Gold Brickers beyond level 20 were all custom, which is why this was level 16-20 and in Boomtown - so we could start with the original ones and then introduce the new tech used by the custom ones (which I am no longer using since we have an expanded group). Also Wyvern originally capped at 30, but thankfully both of those groups were expanded by the Homecoming team. Those changes evolved the series a few times and takes us to where we are today.

Triple thanks to @TerroirNoir. It's a huge undertaking to do any one of the series this way. It's really wonderful to get a glimpse into how someone experiences your arcs. A tremendous gift - thanks again, @TerroirNoir!

Thanks for finding those typos. There were actually TWO in the intro to M1. (I had wanted to draw attention to Langston's HQ and not grammar issues 😉 ). The Silver Clockwork was a shoehorning in that I did not do as completely as I should of. The 1.x trilogy is an intro and where the rest of the "All That Gx" series forks, so I've tried to put a reason in this one for you to explore each of the forks. I have no idea how I will work in All That Glows here, though - might have to wait for 2.1 for that. 🙂

I guess it's a little late to suggest this, but you might consider doing each series as its own thread to make it easier on the readers that want to get the gist of one story or the other.

Found those custom downloadable mobs:

The skulls will not level up. Though the crey can level down they will be tough for a lower level. There is a post somewhere deep in the forum where @Charlie created higher level versions of mobs as customs you can download. He has a skulls group. I'd do the map a little differently... I'd set the map to empty Let's say Front, Middle and Back each support 6 mobs. In the front and middle I would put 3 skulls in each. You can do this by using a mix of bosses and using destructible objects if you don't want it to be boss heavy. (maybe the shady thing they are doing involves crates or medical stations?) In the back I would put say, 2 hostages and 4 crey. Freeing the hostages triggers groups of crey in the front and middle in the unused spaces using a combo of bosses, destructible objects, and patrols.

Wow! Very ambitious to take all of this on! I'll get to squashing the bugs and typos... Appreciate you finding them and letting me know. Adding this much detail to your review, well, you have a long, but I hope exciting, road ahead! The gist of each of the little trilogies in Glitters is that the x.3 is a big finale before the next little trilogy. One of the nice things about doing something longer is that as an author, you can use the tiny maps like a casino, without feeling like you are squandering a mission that could fill in a lot of detail or action. 1.1 was also sort of a "where are they now" arc, for those that recall the original Mercy island.

I had the same thought, but then realized it could make for some interesting allies! So many options! Supertough - Give $him/her all the non toggle armors like stone skin and all the Invulnerability ones + fast healing to make your ally much less squishy but without a bunch of visible powers. Volcanic man - Give him fire/stone attacks with earth's fire resist armor and regular fire armor. Emcee - some illusion and symphony controls and pets to set the stage Rain of terror - all the rains all on one toon with both the ice control and storm fog toggles. I actually explored it for a human form Kheldian ally, but sadly the powers that are available to pull from are no different than the powers in AE, which is too bad. I had hoped they were there because once on a doppelgänger I created that had random powers it did use peace bringer attacks. Somewhere there must be a list that can be pulled from... 😉

All That Glows 2.1 is published! Appreciate you being generous with stars and rich with feedback as I can fix anything with your feedback. I'm working on 3.1 which is a big story rework of PvA1 - PvA1 will be unpublished soon. As with all of them, you start with an idea, and then it goes in some new directions. Tidbit: The new Valeria missions use some great cave maps that I may be able to use in here if they become available some day. Occurred to me though, all this talk in that mission about special purple minerals makes me think Paragon must be sitting on a ton of the stuff if the original cave maps are anything to go by. 🙂

channeling not a bug per se but interesting note - the proto-crystal destructible object in AE has been replaced with the new model - which looks great

Enjoyed Part II also. Eager for Part III to help out my new dancing/clubbing friend!

Long ago this was removed from All That Glitters. I just updated it to reflect the updated changes in game by updating the custom main boss at the end.

It's a very different story, but my My Ghost in the Machine arc was the genesis idea of my All That Glitters series - and for a brief moment, The Ghost in the Machine was the finale - but it really was not up to the task of that. That series has iterated a lot as the Gold Brickers evolved, etc. But this arc is a pretty simple and fun run at some AE exploration. One more for you related to AE: "The Doctor Returns" by @Take One

This was really fun! Thanks for resurrecting it. Some very clever ideas, clever use of formatting, maps, clues and custom mobs and the main person you interact with has loads of personality. Some things that I would do differently, but that's just to my taste. Personally, I'd avoid Having missions at different levels without specifically justifying it in the text somehow. (and seems easy to do in this case) When a character is suddenly hampered for no good reason - it feels off. Defeat Alls. The maps are pretty small though so its not really that bad here. But in general if a player has a big conclusion and boss fight and then has to go back and pick off stragglers they missed - well - it breaks the flow and pacing a bit for me. so many ambushes - when they happen so often they become expected and lose the escalation aspect of it. Again - and all those are trivial things really and I suspect you don't want to fiddle with someone else's work. You know - if there were a different "ghost" and the enemy was Crey, this could be Number Sixes' back story! 🙂

Oooo - did not realize a Dev's choice with, I think, all standard mobs (so no worry about not being 100% rewards) would be far below an OOTB mission. Well, at least there is still DFB and DIB Sorry for the bad suggestion. 😞

So I am thinking of working this into the All That Glitters series. It actually already is, but not by name or format. PvA 1 was an experiment at the time, It began by trying to do a Kheldian story that did not involve the Council but the Kheldian resources span lots of disconnected levels So then I also tried using it as a story where your contact evolves over the levels - and told it as memories - which had the side effect of removing urgency I also experiment with using the failure mechanic to give the player choices along the way, but that big MISSION FAILED never makes it feel like a viable choice, and it is easy to fail unintentionally - as Kyksie says above. All of those things worked, to an extent, but the Failure mechanic, in particular, was not popular. However, the main contact and the core premise of PvA 1 appear throughout All That Glitters. I then did PvA 2 just to squeeze it into a contest to use some new Cimeroran maps and Kheldian mobs - and though it was not a finalist, it did get a Devs choice. Unlike the first one this was all Council and 5th Column and ties tightly into the Post-Praetorian world by involving Arakhn and Requiem after the New Praetorians/Striga story. With a Dev Choice on it, it may have gotten more plays on its own than all of All That Glitters 🙂 But now we have a new origin story with the Sister Valeria arc which mucks up some of the premise, so I'm a little torn. Here's why Anyway - here's the general outline I'm fiddling with - may not see the light of day All That Glows 2.1: Nictus Among Us - a new level 20-30 story with some of the same characters that precedes the core of PvA 1 (Buddy Bolton is a PPD Lt.) All That Glows 3.1: Nictus Exodus - a level 30-40 story that takes in the best missions of PvA 1 but updates the story and adds new missions too (Buddy Bolton is a PPD Capt) All That Glows 4.1: Nictus Evictus - a level 40-54 story that is an ever so slightly updated PvA2. (Buddy Bolton Transcends) Reading over all of the Sister Valeria arc made it seem like there could easily be future stories here - which means more integration work - so I may just leave it all alone too 🙂